Mostly Harmless
by Rainne
Summary: That's right, a SpiderMan 2 Hitchhiker's Guide crossover. What if there was more than one visitor on Earth that knew it was going to be demolished? What if that visitor thought Otto Octavius was someone or something he wasn't?
1. Demolition

Disclaimer: I own neither Spider-Man 2 nor the Hitchhiker's Guide series. Never have. That would be really, really cool though, huh?

A/N: Okay, welcome to my bizarre imagining, you brave, brave soul. I just got this idea one day, and I don't know- it sounded funny or something... Anyway, this is sort of dedicated to all the _fantastic_ writers that have contributed their immense talent this fandom- and there are a bunch. If by some freak coincidence any of them are reading this, they know who they are and if I hadn't read their stuff, and been duly transformed into a raving Ock-fangirl, I wouldn't be writing this right now. Whether that's good or bad remains to be seen, however, so I'll stop babbling now.

NOTE: While everyone in the world _and_ their mother should read the Hitchhiker's Guide series, knowledge of at least the first book will make this a much more enjoyable experience all around. If you haven't you can continue if you want, if "Huh?" happens to be your favorite word. Also, I'm aware that the first book was published in 1980, while this imagining takes place in 2005. In answer to this predicament, I believe I will show as much respect for the natural flow of time as Mr. Adams showed, if you get my drift.

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_Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. -_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

A quaint blue marble circles this sun, minding its own business, its ape-descended population frequently looking into the faces of billions of digital watches because they're just so neat. Probably for the best, there's no telling what could have happened had they glanced skyward just once before it was far too late. But we'll come to that presently.

Now let's peer through the small planet's atmosphere, allowing our gaze to rove over cerulean ocean waters, feral mountains, beautifully sculpted fjords, and focus on one island hugging the Eastern coast of what the natives with the strongest weapons and/or the worst diseases call North America. No natural part of the island can be made out, just the myriad of soaring buildings all crowding up to the shore. The city teems with life, much like a piece of cheese left in the refrigerator for several months, although the civilizations found on such a neglected food item are hardly ever this loud. The people of this planet shout and scream and laugh with such volume a visitor may wonder quite rightly why they would bother inventing car horns and cell phones and stereos. Some have hypothesized that these beings must constantly talk or their mouths seize up- or perhaps silence allows their minds to start working. Cynical though this thought may be, it may have some merit. Just take this slumping figure here. Barely a sound comes from him, the occasional gentle swish of his trench coat, a small sigh, or a peculiar hissing sound every now and then. What this one lacks in volume, he makes up for in mental activity.

Unfortunately, this tremendous intellect is rarely allowed to focus on something worthy of its attention, such as the advanced physics it was trained for. No, most often it runs in much different circles, such as which spot of concrete will supply the most shelter from the harsh New York elements. Or perhaps he may ponder the quickest route to the nearest soup kitchen, if he's feeling cheerful, which is so rare the endorphin buzz makes him nauseous. He spends most of his days walking the streets in an aimless trudge. In the minds of those that formerly cowered from him in terror he leaves no more than a faint impression of solidity off to one side, and a peculiar hissing sound.

The hissing sound. Constant, relentless, cold. Eating away at the back of his brain, begging, cajoling, threatening something nameless and horrible if he continues his existence in such a purposeless fashion. The smart arms, his single triumph atop a rancid pile of failure. They were the perfect assistants, as intelligent as their master, but equipped with a machine's precision and devotion to its task. Perhaps that single-minded devotion to completing their task could be called the actuators' one flaw, for even after all that has happened their whispers torment their creator with endless pleas to rebuild, begin anew. But Otto Octavius remembers, he remembers the words he spoke, what should have been his last words, "I will not die a monster." It still seems like they came from his mouth only yesterday.

He speaks these words aloud sometimes, when he feels the artificial intelligence creep over his brain like mist off dry ice. After all that has happened, the actuators have their devotion- and Otto has his pride. He remembers, he sacrificed himself to the river, redemption was his. Another failure, he awoke on the shore, cold and stiff with agony. But he remembers, just before sweet oblivion slipped from his hands, a moment of peace cradled in dark warmth. This wholly new feeling was quickly joined by elation of a reunion with something so familiar and so brief he feels now that he must have imagined it in a moment of desperate hope. And yet he clings to the memory like the last handhold over the precipice. He would not die a monster. If there is any reason at all why he is not at the bottom of the East River, he will not live as one either. He sticks to the streets, steals only when absolutely necessary, works the odd job that usually garners him no more than a warm place to sleep at night. He haunts soup kitchens under assumed names, never stays longer than it takes to eat his fill and perhaps read the newspaper if it is provided, just to keep up.

This sunny Thursday, a few hours before lunchtime, Otto sat against the stone façade of a building. The green of Central Park soothed his damaged eyes, already weary from another night of little rest. The whispers were getting to him. Deciding to get moving before the noon crowd thickened, he pushed himself to his sore feet, the actuators helping just enough so he wouldn't notice. Otto tried to use the arms as little as possible these days; he didn't want to encourage them. He set off down the sidewalk in his customary trudging fashion, allowing his thoughts to wander as aimlessly as his feet. It took a serious prod from one of the actuators to alert him to the second man's presence. Otto immediately tensed, fearing a mugging, although he couldn't imagine anyone desperate enough to mug someone who obviously had nothing worth taking. However, a swift glance at the man revealed not a twitchy robber, but a small well-dressed man with a curious smile on his face. The smile grew when he caught Otto's gaze, but the scientist saw an urgency fidgeting beneath the jovial features.

"Nice day?" the man inquired.

Otto cast his eyes across the cloudless blue sky. "I suppose," he said with a frown.

The cheery tone fluttered away from the man's bald-faced anxiety, "Look, let's not fool around here. Haven't you been checking your Sub-Etha Sens-o-matic?"

"I beg your pardon?" As the first conversation Otto had had with another person in months, this was not turning out as he would've imagined.

The man's face was scrawled now with intense frustration. Without a word he jabbed a finger skywards, and Otto's gaze followed. Not for the first time that day, his eyes nearly popped out of his skull. An impossibly huge yellow something was creeping across the sky overhead. As Otto stared, it passed over the sun, plunging him and his new companion into darkness. This is when the screaming started. Running, gaping people seemed almost to materialize out of thin air. The screaming was soon joined by car horns and crashes, swearing and more screaming. Otto just stared, silent.

"Yeah," said the man as if he'd like very much to give Otto a round smack to the head. Instead he grabbed the scientist's limp arm and started hauling him along down the street.

It was some time before Otto could think to protest, "W-what is that? Hey, where are we going?"

"Well I'm assuming _you_ don't have transport, right?" the man replied, his voice harsh with sarcasm, "I'd know a hitchhiker anywhere. You got your towel with you?"

Of all the things falling into a heap at the front of Otto's mind, the filthy Beanie Babies beach towel he'd been sleeping on the past few nights on the roof of some office building appeared in his mind's eye with surprising clarity, "Um, no, it's back at-"

He was interrupted by a sudden silence. Everything went still for a while. Otto started to shake with the strange vibration emanating from the actuators, which were frozen at his sides even as they trembled like an espresso addict after the morning's first dozen cups. His companion watched him with a kind of sick dread.

Otto's whole body convulsed just once when the voice spoke, apparently originating from the shaking actuators, or perhaps that rusty garbage can that was sloughing off dust as it rocked, or the cars that jittered away from their parking spots, "_People of Earth, your attention, please_," tears started in Otto's eyes, "_This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council. As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you._" The PA died away.

"But, how could we know?" Otto whispered.

The voice returned, "_There's no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you've had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it's far too late to start making a fuss about it now._" An empty black square opened in the huge something above. Otto's companion whimpered.

"We've never been to Alpha Centauri," Otto whispered.

"_What do you mean, you've never been to Alpha Centauri?_" the voice answered, indignant, "_For heaven's sake, mankind, it's only four light-years away, you know. I'm sorry, but if you can't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs that's your own outlook._

_"Energize the demolition beams._" (1)

Light shone out of the square.

"_I don't know, apathetic bloody planet, I've no sympathy at all._" The voice was gone, and the actuators, trash cans, and cars stilled. Otto was left with a horrible emptiness inside as he allowed the man to yank him into a sprint down the street. The man whipped what looked like a sleek black garage door opener from a pocket and pressed the device's single blue button as the pair rounded a corner into a wide alley. Otto would have sworn he _felt_ his eyeballs pressing at the lenses of his sunglasses as the silvery flying saucer wavered into existence, its round edge nearly slicing into the brick walls of the buildings it was parked between. The clear dome on top slid back into the ship's body with a soft hum.

At this point the man vaulted into the waiting seat inside the ship, using the four tentacles that had ripped out of the back of his shirt. Otto had to imprison his rebellious eyeballs behind his eyelids.

"Are you coming, man?" the man- no, there was no denying it, the alien screamed, "Or are you just that attached to this doomed backwater burg?"

Trying to describe what exactly passed through Otto's mind in response to that question would be as pointless an exercise as trying to strain a tornado through a butterfly net. Best stick with actions. He glanced at the alley's mouth; it was becoming steadily brighter out on the street, nothing was moving, all frozen in pointless hopeless horror. He patted the left breast pocket of his trench coat, and a corner of his mouth twitched upward. He looked at the ship with the alien inside frantically pressing buttons with all six of his arms, and the other corner also tentatively elevated. The actuators brought him inside the ship in 1.002 seconds. 1.005 seconds later, New York was an ever decreasing brownish-gray blob below them. 1.009 seconds later the Earth was an ever decreasing number of miles-wide rocks hurtling past them into the starry black ether beyond. The Vogon Constructor Fleet coasted away, fat and happy on the knowledge of a day well ruined for somebody that wasn't them. (2)

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Otto stared at the back of his companion's head for a while, focusing on the very top layer of his thoughts, and ignoring for now the roiling darkness and confusion that lay just below. "You hadn't been in New York for long before..."

"No, just arrived when the Sub-Etha went off," the alien said with a sad sigh, "And, mother of Zarquon, I know I'm gonna regret it for the rest of my life. The guide said it was a great city. _It is impossible to have more fun without electrocuting your pleasure center_, it said. Oh well." A chunk of Earth floated by, they both watched its lazy spin as it passed.

Otto laid a hand on his left breast pocket for a moment before pulling out what was inside. It was a worn Polaroid photograph, the sides of the image obscured by fingerprints, of a college-age couple. The woman's long red-brown hair was trapped beneath the man's arm that held her tightly to his body. They both smiled at the viewer; the woman's a radiant beam that lit up her eyes, the man's a crooked grin that made it obvious he was looking at the woman and couldn't care less about the camera. _And now, Rosie_, he thought, _and now..._ "I think you may have the wrong idea about me, friend."

The alien looked over his shoulder at Otto, "What do you mean?"

"I mean that you should know I'm not an alien."

There was a short silence, "Oh?"

"I am afraid you may have inadvertently saved the last member of the human race." No one would have been more surprised than Otto to find himself smiling at the rather grim statement. Maybe it was just selfish relief that of the uncountable number of people on Earth, _he_ was the chosen one, the only survivor. Let's give him that happy, erroneous thought, shall we? Call it a gift.

"But- the tentacles, I saw them...?"

An actuator came into the alien's view, its metal claws catching the starlight as they opened and shut over the glowing red heart-light in the center. Said light picked up the slight tremor in the undoubtedly flesh-composed tentacle that manipulated the ship's controls.

"Wow," the alien murmured, blinking slowly at the actuator, "That's- that's different. I didn't think- I mean, humans always seemed so_ primitive_."

Otto frowned, feeling slightly indignant, "Yes, well, perhaps you hadn't been to the right places yet."

"Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, we'd go out to the real _sticks_ to buzz folks. Not the cities."

"Buzz?" Otto inquired with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, it's great fun!" the alien enthused, "You head out to the dankest spot on the globe, you pick out some unsuspecting nobody no one would believe anyway, and you scare the waste substances out of them. With these planets that haven't made interstellar contact yet it's a breeze, you just pop on some stupid antennae and make little _beep, beep_ noises at them and they just... Something wrong, pal? Only you look a little- off."

Even while the alien was describing how he terrified the living daylights out of the late members of Otto's species, the scientist had suddenly plunged deep into the thoughts he'd been staying just afloat of so far. Images of everything, everything he'd ever known, good and bad, shot through his mind like a rocket-powered slide show, and Otto really didn't know how to feel about it all. Thoughts of all the good things he'd sorely miss were overshadowed by the profundity with which he'd run his life into the ground. Thoughts of all the bad things he'd never have to see or experience again were dwarfed by the ache in his heart for every small pleasure that was lost forever. And above it all, he now realized that he was a living cliché- a walking, talking loose end. "What on Earth am I going to do now?"

The alien gave him a bemused grin, "Is that a trick question?" Otto looked sharply at his companion, who schooled his features into something more appropriately somber, "We-ell, I guess you could come home with me. You may even enjoy it on my planet. If you don't mind me saying, the people on Earth didn't seem very accepting of sentient beings with superior quantities of appendages." He wagged his eyebrows encouragingly.

Otto considered this supposition, and could find no evidence to the contrary. But a worry plagued him, "And the people of your planet wouldn't mind a human in their midst, even if they had the correct number of limbs?"

"Are you kidding? We get all kinds on good ol' Santraginus V! It's a hot tourist spot now; they come for the beaches and the fish and whatnot. You'll like it, I promise." The alien started, "Oh yeah, I almost forgot!" He darted out of his seat and crouched at one of the small cabinets that lined the circular cockpit near the floor of the flying saucer. Opening the chrome door, he pulled out what looked for all the world like a fishbowl, right down to the yellow fish meandering around inside, although Otto had never seen a fishbowl with glass that shimmered like that, or made such a lovely ringing hum wherever the alien's fingers brushed it.

"I need a fish?" Otto inquired.

The alien laughed, "Yeah, you do." He scooped a fish out of the singing bowl, "Now relax, this won't hurt a bit." Before the question of just what won't hurt a bit could even be formed in Otto's mind, the alien clapped his hand over the scientist's ear. Otto grimaced as the fish slithered deep into his aural tract.

"W-w-what on Earth was that!" he spluttered when his spine had stopped quivering.

"We gotta break you of that nasty habit, pal," the alien said, the picture of flippancy, "And I told you to relax. That's just a Babel fish."

"And I need some creature burrowing into my brain for what reason!" The actuators arced over their host, the claws clicking with what could have been anxiety if they were capable of emotion. Otto was experiencing something that yet again set him apart from quite a large number of his fellow beings. That is, the artificial intelligence of the actuators was attempting to adjust to this new presence so close to their host's consciousness, and the struggle was on the verge of scrambling said host's brain.

The alien was watching the actuators as he spoke, "It's okay, man. It's not burrowing into your brain."

Otto pressed his palms to his temples as a tentative armistice was reached between the AI and the Babel fish. Once he'd blinked his eyes back into focus, he realized that the alien's last statement hadn't been in English. The words had an interesting fluid sound to them, full of long "o" sounds and several "l"s. It was like nothing he'd heard before, and yet he'd understood it perfectly. When he looked up the alien was grinning and wagging his eyebrows again. Otto said everything that occurred to him to say, "How?"

The alien looked up and squinted, as if trying to recall a particularly boring textbook passage. "Eh, not sure," he said in his language, "Been a bit since we learned about them in grade school. Something about brainwaves- like, it feeds on them, but only not yours. It feeds on the brainwaves of the people around you, and it excretes telepathic something or others that makes whatever you hear make sense, basically." (3)

"Basically," Otto nodded. He was just relieved the fish hadn't done something horrible to his link with the actuators. No, the whispers were still there, safe and sound, coexisting rather peacefully now with their new roommate. "So, I can understand any language I hear now?"

"Yeah, pretty neat, huh? I got mine years ago- graduation present. Better than digital watches, I'll bet."

"That's remarkable..." Otto could just recall the names of a few biologists who would cheerfully offer up their firstborn for a chance to have a small slimy yellow fish wriggle into their ears.

"Yeah," the alien continued, a little put off by the sudden distant look on his companion's face, "Well it should come in handy since I won't be around to translate everything for you."

"That reminds me," Otto snapped back to attention, "Who are you?"

The alien laughed and slapped a tentacle on his head, "Hey, I forgot about that, too! Man, and you let me shove a Babel fish in your ear and you didn't even know my name? Geez, pal, you need to learn to take better care of yourself if you want to live in the Galaxy. You're outside that tiny ignorant rock you called home now, buddy, and not everyone you meet will be as nice as me. Call me Bookwang. And yourself?"

"Otto Octavius," the scientist replied. The pair shook tentacle in actuator, which was interesting. "So you won't be sticking around on Santraginus V?" Otto tried out the name of his new home planet, a bit of a mouthful he found but nothing he couldn't deal with.

"Oh, I'll be around, but just on the other side of the planet from where I figure you'll be setting up shop. I'm actually in school now, just on break doing a little buzzing before I buckle back down. Woo! Go Santraginus V U! Fighting _ax'ecotls_! Woo!"

_Oh God,_ Otto thought, _I've been rescued by a college student._ Suppressing a dejected sigh, he asked, "How long will the trip be to Santraginus V?"

"Not too long, once I get the photon reactor going. It takes a little warming up on this bucket of corroded alloys," Bookwang gave the control panel a half-hearted tap of irritation, "Yup, I'm waiting to get one of those Infinite Improbability Drives I've been hearing about. They sound sweet." (4)

Otto thought about asking what Bookwang was talking about, but he was starting to develop a sense of when a certain subject was something he simply did not have even the mental background needed to understand. That grated something awful on his scientists' curiosity; he'd just have to deal with it until he'd been out in the Galaxy a while and soaked up some of the culture. In the meantime he settled into his chair, both he and the actuators gazing out of the dome at the perfect black dotted with tiny lights beyond. Billions of suns, with billions upon billions of different planets orbiting them. For the first time in months, Otto didn't feel alone. He touched his left breast pocket. _And now, Rosie, I move on._

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(1): My first footnote, I feel giddy. Anyways- you can't prove it couldn't happen! And if you can, _go outside._

(2): For more information on the horror that is everything Vogon, see chapter five of _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy._

(3): For more information on the Babel fish, see chapter six of _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy._

(4): I'll give you three guesses where you can find more information on the Infinite Improbability Drive. Hint: it's in chapter ten.

A/N: I have so much respect for each and every long-term Ock-writer now, it's not even funny. That Otto-angst is _rough!_ Just four paragraphs of it and I'm like, "Okay, can we move on now?" Hope I did a decent job of it, though. I actually had a great time writing this; add to the list that I hope you enjoyed reading it half as much as I enjoyed writing it. Review please, I have a feeling there's at least one canonical error somewhere in the morass. Also I'd be happy to receive some alternate title suggestions. I tried to come up something clever and provocative, but that's all I got! But thanks anyway for exposing yourself to my special brand of insanity even if you'd rather not comment on the experience.


	2. Oh Belgium!

A/N: Well, you talked me into it. So here goes, the further adventures of Otto in space. Hope you get a kick out of it.

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"Coming up on home, Otto," Bookwang roused the scientist from his musings. Otto had been staring out of the alien's domed flying saucer for a while, trying to work out what new shape his life would take.

**What must change, Father?** the actuators inquired, **A new world- the perfect opportunity to rebuild.**

_That's your answer to everything,_ Otto responded._ Besides, it would appear that the rest of the galaxy has already met my great goal of an everlasting energy source. What would be the point?_

Putting aside his troubled thoughts for now, Otto faced forward and took in the sight that was Santraginus V. White clouds swirled over the surface, which looked to be all blue oceans marbled with pale scraps of land. Otto could pick out very little green on any of the land he could see, mostly just blue and white with the occasional gray of a sprawling city. Otto's view was obscured, however, by the crowd of space vehicles buzzing around the planet. As they approached, he watched the various ships sort themselves into orderly lines that led to an enormous space station that encircled the planet much like one of Saturn's rings, only made of metal instead of dust and ice. Otto tracked one vehicle as it worked its way through the line to enter the ring through a square opening, and then exit a few minutes later inside the ring before descending onto Santraginus V. Bookwang piloted the saucer to join a line.

"What is this?" Otto asked his companion as the actuators weaved around tracking the progress of several different ships.

"Oh, it's like a check-in station," Bookwang replied, keeping his eyes on the vehicle ahead of him, "They built it when tourism got really big on Santraginus V. Things started to get a little shady- like crooks and people doing deals here because it was so crowded they could get away with it. Now every ride that wants to land here has to go through the check-in."

"I see," Otto said calmly as his stomach fell into his feet. The actuators ceased their roving and drooped down to the floor, hiding their coils in Otto's coat. _There is no possible way they could know,_ Otto firmly told himself, _Just act casual_. But the actuators amplified his fresh anxiety, chittering around his seat. He couldn't stop himself from asking, "Do you know if Earth was monitored at all before it was demolished?"

"Monitored?" Bookwang burst out laughing, "Who'd want to monitor Earth? Was there something to be monitored? Maybe it would've been in a few centuries, but not that I'm aware of, pal. Why?"

"Oh, no reason. I was just thinking of- well, accounts of UFO sightings around volcanoes and cities. Just wondering what they may have seen..." The actuators seemed to peer up at their host, begging him to shut up.

"Well, yeah, people stopped by the volcanoes-"

Otto blinked, "Wait- they did?"

"Mm hm, for fuel. You know the hydrogen produced by eruptions makes great fuel for certain kinds of ships. Like the old Firefly models and things." (1)

"No kidding," Otto murmured as the saucer glided into an open square in the ring and landed on the floor of what looked to Otto much like an airplane hangar, complete with an open square further ahead that framed a section of the surface of Santraginus V.

The pair watched, one expectantly and one anxiously, as a booth extended out from the wall of the hangar on a metal pole. Inside the booth stood an officious-looking female Santraginian wearing a drive-thru style earpiece/microphone headset and holding a tablet in one tentacle. As the booth neared she spoke, her voice projected from the speakers on the saucer's console. "Good day," she said in the same manner that one might also say, "License and registration, please."

"Hi," Bookwang replied with a wide smile. Otto tried to keep his eyes focused on the floor. "Um, I'm a natural of Santraginus V, just heading back to school-"

"May I see your planetary citizenship, please."

"Yeah, uh, no problem," Bookwang tapped at the consol keys. An image appeared on the dome's surface that contained a passport-style picture of Bookwang and some writing.

The check-in officer nodded, then jerked her head at Otto when the image disappeared, "And your friend?"

Both of the saucer's occupants blanched, "Umm, he's a friend- yes."

"What is his planetary citizenship?"

"Uh, well," Bookwang stammered, "He's- he's just, um- he's not Santraginian... He's, um..."

As the young alien stumbled, the officer turned and truly looked at Otto for the first time. She caught the scientist's eyes as they darted up from the floor, and something in her icy gaze melted. Her eyes widened, her mouth dropped open, and a blush spread across her cheeks. Otto was so astonished by the officer's reaction that an actuator peeked up unheeded to check out the situation. The officer gasped, a hand flying to her mouth at the sight of the metal claw, but instead of screaming out for the authorities as Otto fully expected, she breathed an "Oh my goodness" and her blush deepened.

Bookwang had stopped babbling and now his eyes bounced between the officer and Otto, "Uh, is there a problem?"

She blinked twice, and seemed to breathe again. "No, no- there's no problem, sir. You can go now." A tentacle vaguely gestured toward the opening at the end of the hangar.

"Um... okay... then," Bookwang said. If the saucer had feet it would have tiptoed out of the hangar. The officer was still gazing at Otto with a tiny smile on her face, and one of her lower tentacles performed a shy little wave, which Otto returned out of sheer bewilderment.

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"Is there anything you want to tell me?" Bookwang and Otto asked each other.

"Nope," Bookwang said, "That was one of the weirdest things I've ever seen."

"Same here."

"Well, anyway, whatever it was it got us past the check-in. I thought we were screwed for a minute."

"Yes, I could tell." Otto recalled his companion's desperate rambling when asked to explain his passenger's presence. "But we can't hope to have the same luck twice. Assuming I find this planet suitable as a new home, how do I go about getting a planetary citizenship?"

The alien considered this for a moment. "We-ell, I'm a natural, a natural-born being of Santraginus V," Bookwang explained, "So I've had my citizenship since birth. But I guess you need to do something special to immigrate to a different planet..." A pall of horror cascaded over his face. He turned saucer-sized eyes on Otto, "You have to go to... the Vogsphere."

"And that is?"

Bookwang stared into the stars beyond and whispered, "The planet of the bureaucrats."

"Oh, well, I'm sure it's not as bad as all that. People seem to be hopping from one planet to another all the time around here. How hard can it be to make one your home?"

Bookwang's voice was low and cold, "As hard as the Vogons want it to be."

Otto rolled his eyes, "All melodrama aside, Bookwang, I think we should get moving because there appears to be an irate blue cloud who would like us to get out of its way." An actuator snapped its tri-dactyl pincers at the pulsing being in the vehicle behind them.

With one last look of dull terror Bookwang returned to the saucer's controls. Though his voice had lost a great deal of its enthusiasm, Bookwang spoke as he guided the saucer through Santraginus V's atmosphere, "The pad isn't fixed at home yet, so we're gonna land at the common launch/land building in the city. I have a pod reserved there we can ride home. The ship can stay here at the L and L until we get there, then I'll call it home. After that- well, we'll have to see, buddy."

The saucer descended into the bowels of a gleaming city. Tall towers of smooth pearly metal dotted with round windows speared up into the sky while flying vehicles flitted by like gnats. The Santraginian sunlight catching on the towers blinded Otto momentarily. He slipped back on the shades he'd taken off for the trip through space. The saucer hovered over a large rectangular building that had no roof over part of it, and Bookwang had a brief conversation over the speakers with the operators of the launch/land building. Otto viewed the miniscule figures of people as they climbed out of their vehicles and disappeared under the roof of a smaller connected building. Bookwang watched as well, smiling when an empty square lit up on the floor of the open building. He neatly landed the saucer within the square's boundaries before turning to Otto, "Well, Otto- we're home!" He paused a minute, looking at his companion.

"What?" Otto asked. Bookwang was staring at him like he was trying to decipher some illegible writing scrawled on the scientist's face.

Bookwang blinked, "Oh, sorry, Otto. It's nothing, you just reminded me of something for a second."

"What did I remind you of?"

"Can't remember." The saucer's dome slid back and its two occupants climbed out. After the required period of muscle-stretching that follows a trip of any duration, Bookwang registered and paid for the saucer's parking space and the pair made for what Otto could only describe as a terminal. They walked down a long wide hallway lined with shops and eateries for the new arrivals and soon-to-be departures. It was as they walked that Otto noticed a staring. He hunched his shoulders a bit and kept the actuators hidden, but it seemed to do very little to inhibit the number of people that stopped in their tracks to watch him pass. The number of Santraginians that stopped to watch him pass. The number of female Santraginians that stopped to watch him pass.

"Bookwang?" Otto tapped his companion's shoulder, but the young alien was too busy passing out smiles and waves to all the ladies that seemed very interested in his and Otto's progress down the terminal. Just before the pair entered a large circular food court area, Bookwang felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder and saw an index finger shoot forward and heard a voice shout right by his ear, "What on Earth is that!"

Bookwang followed where the finger pointed, his eyes drifting upward to take in the massive poster that took up a full quarter of the food court's wall. On the poster, in bold blocks of blue, yellow, red, and white, was a picture of Otto in a very intimidating yet somehow provocative pose complete with actuators, shades, hat, and trench coat. In Bookwang's mind the tumblers fell into place, the numbers added up, the light bulb went on, and every other metaphor for abstract thought took place just in time for a Santraginian woman to scream, "It's HIM!" and break into a run at the pair.

"Oh Belgium!" Bookwang cried and grabbed Otto's arm before turning to sprint back down the terminal. The actuators looked back and sent to Otto's brain the image of over a dozen women chasing the pair, all with looks of rapturous hunger plastered on their faces. Bookwang and Otto dove into a large crowd of people waiting in line for a certain restaurant, immediately followed by the other large crowd of women. In the confusion of two large crowds unexpectedly becoming one really large crowd, Bookwang and Otto dashed through an available door and closed it behind them.

Inside the narrow hallway behind the door, Bookwang fell against the wall, breathing hard. He slid down until he was seated on the floor, put his head in his hands, and groaned, "I can't believe this. Oh man, this can't be happening. Who'd have thought...? This is unbelievable."

"Bookwang, what are you talking about?" Otto was trying very hard to stay calm, but the alien's despairing posture and voice was not helping. He allowed the actuators to rise, bobbing and weaving and peering around the room for something to make their host not feel the way he was feeling.

"Oh man," Bookwang sighed once more, "Okay look, before I left they were advertising this- well, I guess I might as well call it a movie. I don't know what it's called and I just realized that you look more or less exactly like the main character. And it looks like it was a pretty big hit- um, especially with the ladies."

Otto slid down the opposite wall, and then was silent for a while. Feeling a morbid curiosity come over him he asked, "What was the movie about?"

"What? Oh, I don't know, I only saw a few commercials for it before I left. I think this guy gets involved with these shady guys, and they kidnap his family and cut off his tentacles. So the guy builds his own robotic ones and goes after the shady guys. It must be pretty good, to get this kind of reaction." He nodded at the door, from behind which female voices could still be heard asking where he'd gone was that really him what's he doing here I can't believe I actually saw him I almost touched him.

Otto considered this, "Hunh. So he's a hero?"

"Yeah, I guess so. That's a plus, huh? Beats being the villain."

Otto swallowed his laughter but could not stifle a wry grin. "Yes, I suppose it does." He stood up, "Well, what now? I don't suppose you know your way around the backrooms of this launch/land building, do you?"

Bookwang looked up at him with his eyes full of misery, "No."

Otto rolled his eyes and sent an actuator coiling around the young alien's waist, hoisting him to his feet. The scientist's hidden eyes bored into Bookwang's as he spoke, "Bookwang, I have experienced much worse troubles than an accidental resemblance to some fictional character. If this is the most unfortunate thing that has ever happened to you then you have lived an exceedingly charmed life, but that doesn't mean you can't deal with this with any less ease than myself. Now think. Is there any way to reach that pod you mentioned earlier?"

Bookwang's eyes broke free from Otto's, and celebrated by darting wildly around the hallway. Otto picked up on his discomfort and released him, stepping back with an unreadable look on his face. It had been some time since the actuators had held a living person, not since the girlfriend, in fact- had he ever found out her name?

"There has to be a way," Bookwang said eventually, "I'm sure we'll find it if we just walk a ways. Maybe we can ask someone, I've got friends working here." He set off down the narrow hallway with Otto trailing close behind. Upon reaching the end of the hallway, Bookwang turned the wrong way.

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After half an hour of twists and turns, arguing and backtracking, and thankfully no crowds of rabid female fans, Otto and Bookwang finally found themselves in a hallway lined on one side with doors. The doors were labeled with the names of the shops and restaurants they had seen in the terminal. "Thank Zarquon," Bookwang breathed and made for one of the doors. He went to open it, saying "Stay behind the door, okay, Otto?"

Otto nodded and stood in the hallway so that the door would hide him when opened. Bookwang pulled it open and was illuminated by bright light before several tentacles reached out and yanked him into the room beyond. The door slammed shut, leaving Otto blinking in the hallway. Using the heightened hearing of the actuators, Otto was relieved to hear normal sounds of happy reunion inside the room Bookwang had been pulled into. _He wasn't kidding about having friends_, Otto thought,_ Sounds like he's quite popular._

Some minutes later Bookwang emerged from the room attempting to pry a tentacle from his forearm without dropping the cup grasped in his hand. "Bye!" he said, trying to work a finger under the tentacle, "I promise, Hurbig, I promise I'll stop by soon, okay? I'll see you later." The tentacle finally released him, and Bookwang turned a happy smile on Otto. "Want some?" he said, offering the cup.

The scientist peered into it suspiciously, even as his stomach clenched with hunger. The cup contained what looked like tiny pancakes, which were red. "I wonder if humans can digest this."

"Only one way to find out," Bookwang informed him cheerfully.

With even the actuators telling him that it was either take a chance or starve, Otto tried one of the food items. It tasted like a perfectly prepared pancake, warm and soft and nourishing. His stomach growled for more. "These are the best pancakes I've ever tasted," he mumbled through a full mouth.

"Oh, well, they can taste like whatever you want, actually. I always set them to _chul'lo_ pancakes." He passed the cup to Otto and the moment it changed hands the tiny red pancakes turned into gray ovoid shapes. "Just line your hands up with the spaces there and think about what you want to eat."

Otto cupped the container in the outlined spaces on either side and took a moment to decide what he'd like.

**Father,** the actuators piped up when Otto had reached his decision, **that food source is insufficient in many necessary nutrients-**

_Well then it's a good thing you're not eating it,_ Otto retorted and the ovoid shapes were replaced with Oreos over the actuators' protestations. (2) "Did you get directions to the pod garage?"

Bookwang nodded happily and resumed the lead. Pushing through one last doorway, the pair entered into a wide low-ceilinged room so wide Otto couldn't make out the end of it. Blue spheres with single broad windows waited in several long rows. Tracks led away from each sphere to join one long track that wound around each row and retreated into the distance of the building. Bookwang took out a small device he'd been given when he paid for their landing spot and pressed a button on it. They waited in silence until a high-pitched metallic screech like the keening of a robotic hawk drifted on the air.

As the screech grew louder, Otto asked the actuators to calculate its distance. **Object is sixteen miles away.**

_What? That can't be possible._

**Correction: object is twelve miles away.**

_Wait, how can it go that fast?_

**Correction: object is ten miles away.**

_Maybe I should duck...?_

Just as the screech became unbearable, a sphere became visible rocketing down the track towards them. Otto felt the urge to dive out of the way, but a glance at Bookwang showed the alien to be calmly awaiting the pod's arrival, so he stood his ground. The pod came to a smooth but abrupt stop before the pair, and a circle of the sphere's shell separated and swung aside to reveal its interior. Otto shakily followed Bookwang when he climbed inside it. Inside the pod were a pair of white two-seater sofas, both facing the craft's window. Sitting on the pristine front sofa, the deplorable condition of his clothes was brought to Otto's attention. It occurred to him that he'd really chosen an ideal planet to immigrate to. At last, he could find clothes made for an eight-limbed person. He settled into this seat, allowing himself a modicum of happiness at this newfound upside.

"Yeah," Bookwang said, "It's better if you relax."

"What is?"

The pod took off, and Otto blacked out.

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(1): Seriously, it's true. There have been a ton of UFO sightings around volcanoes, scientists think because aliens may use the gases for fuel. Weird, huh?

(2): A shout out to my fellow fans of "Boy Genius," a most excellent webcomic illuminating the early years of Otto Octavius. Read it. Know it. Love it.

A/N: So yeah, that was my big reveal: Otto resembles a Santraginian superstar. Well, it's funny to me, and I think I'll entertain myself before I'll entertain strangers. Thanks for reading- stick around for more thrills, chills, and awkward conversations.


	3. Santraginian Family Life

A/N: Hope everyone enjoys this chapter half as much as I've enjoyed reading your reviews, you guys rule.

In case anyone's interested, I've whipped up a picture of dear Bookwang for my deviantART gallery. The link to that is in my profile.

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Otto regained consciousness in a matter of minutes, coming to just in time to see the city slip out of sight. The pod rode smoothly on its track like a pearl sliding along a ribbon of dark silver running down a narrow strip of sand. The scientist peered out of the pod's window, taking in the cloudless expanse of blue sky dotted with flying vehicles. If he traced the line of track he could spot the tiny shape of the pod ahead of them. _It must be miles and miles ahead_, he thought.

**One hundred and twenty-four miles, Father,** the actuators informed him. Otto felt he would have been happier not knowing.

Sometimes the pod passed through small towns built alongside the track on the slightly wider spits of land. The pod's speed prevented him from making out any details before the towns were out of view, but he got the impression of white buildings only three stories at the tallest and some patches of low-lying foliage nearer to the water. People as well, and certainly not all sporting eight limbs. Even in the briefest glances Otto garnered he was aware of the great diversity of Santraginus V.

The pod slowed as it entered a town larger than the ones Otto had glimpsed so far, but still a far cry from the city Otto had left behind. While the pod's track seemed to hold the title of Main Street, unpaved roads led off of it. Stores took up space along the track and residences lined the roads. The town had a tranquil feel to it; people strolled down the streets or sat on porches, children played in yards, small land vehicles traveled past the houses and shops. The house-lined roads ended at the water's edge on either side, and Otto spotted people splashing in the gentle surf or lying on the strip of beach left clear of buildings. Again he noticed the patches of plant life around the town. Otto asked if this was Bookwang's hometown.

"No, we're a little further out. This is the closest town to home, though. It's nice, you could settle down here."

The thought had crossed Otto's mind. The actuators of course protested its lack of suitable buildings in which to house a fusion reactor, but Otto found a kind of dark humor in the idea of a supervillain bedding down in this idyllic alien community. Yes, he felt he could find some peace here, at last. _I should have gotten out of the city months ago,_ the thought occurred to Otto. Much as he wished Earth hadn't been destroyed, he dreaded to think what would have become of him if he was still there. _Probably would have died, sooner rather than later._ Otto tried to focus on Santraginus V's sparkling waters as the pod left the town.

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Otto noticed the trees first as the pod pulled up to Bookwang's home. They had the curved trunks of palm trees, but deciduous branches with star-shaped leaves replaced the long fronds. Two groves of these trees framed a path up to the complex of small white buildings that made up Bookwang's home, which was situated on a peninsula of sand. The pod sped off once Otto and Bookwang stepped clear of it, streaking down the track and soon hidden behind one of the groves. Bookwang spoke in jovial tones as he led Otto down the path, "Welcome to the house, buddy, you can stay as long as you like. We should have plenty of room and food and as much sun as you can stand. We even have some trees, if you get homesick," he gestured to the groves.

But a new worry had caught the scientist's attention, "Bookwang, will your parents mind you bringing a stranger into their house?"

"Will my what mind?"

"Your parents- will they mind taking in an alien refugee?"

"Oh, my _parents_. No, they won't mind. They're not here."

"They're on vacation?"

Bookwang squinted at the sky, "Uh, something like that. Anyway, don't worry about it, just come on in."

The pair mounted the small patio that was shaded by a trellised canopy of climbing plants and stopped a front door whose knob glowed red. Bookwang attempted to turn the knob with his hand, but the knob defied all attempts to be turned. In fact, it seemed to glow a brighter red. After struggling for several moments Bookwang stopped and let out a short sigh, muttering, "I spent _way_ too much time on Earth..." A lower tentacle rose and gently grasped the knob, which immediately turned white and turned easily.

"Tentacle-print identification?" Otto inquired once the pair entered.

"We like our privacy," Bookwang replied curtly, still annoyed with himself for becoming so accustomed to using his hands. "We'll figure something out for you later."

The actuators picked up the sound of irregular steps coming from a stairwell next to the front door. All four lights were pointed at the stairwell when the Santraginian girl came into view, vaulting the last few steps with her tentacles, and captured the moment the girl's look of joy at seeing Bookwang changed into a look of perfect shock at seeing his companion.

"Hasta! Hey, little girl, look who's home!" Bookwang spread his arms and tentacles wide in full anticipation of a hug, but soon realized the girl was frozen at the bottom of the stairwell, staring at Otto. "Oh boy," he said, and swung into action. He hustled Otto deeper into the house, and then led Hasta back up the stairs, a tentacle keeping a firm grip on her shoulders while he held her hand in his.

"Bookwang?" Hasta said, her voice faint, "Was that who I think it was?"

"No."

"No?"

"No, definitely not."

"I know you've met a lot of people, Bookwang-"

"It's not him! Look, his planet was destroyed around lunchtime today, so I brought him here. He's all right. His name is Otto."

"And you're sure he's not-"

"Yes! It's just a crazy," Bookwang recalled the horde at the launch/land building, "_horrible_ coincidence. And he's going to be staying here for a bit, because he has no place to go. Now, are you gonna be cool about this?"

She and Bookwang exchanged glances. "Um, I'm going to go upstairs. I'll be down... later." Hasta's tentacles took her up the stairs in seconds. Bookwang blew out a breath and let his head fall back against the wall.

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Pushed off into the depths of the house, still not quite sure what had just happened, Otto commenced wandering. The complex he'd seen outside framed a large garden lush with plant-life, the colors of which were almost too much for Otto's sensitive eyes. The sunlight that bounced off the plants splashed over the white walls and tinted the dark reflective floors as it fell through open doorways. Peering through these doorways, Otto was somewhat relieved to be able to identify a spacious kitchen, three sitting areas, and several bedrooms. Each room carried over the main hall's motif of white walls and dark floors; they also had touches of color such as brightly colored objects on shelves or bowls of flowers taken from the garden. All in all, the house radiated peace, although it was a peace that reminded Otto of a hotel recently emptied of guests. The scientist was grateful when Bookwang joined him, if only to break the heavy silence.

"That was my sister, Hasta," he said, "I forgot she was the one here now."

"The one? She's here alone?"

"She's three years old Otto, I think she can take care of herself." Bookwang reached into the foliage of a certain blue-leaved plant and began plucking the pyramidal fruit from its branches.

Otto started at Bookwang's casual attitude as he said this, immediately picking up on the fact that he was about to learn something weird about his companion. Cringing internally, Otto asked, "And how old are you, Bookwang?"

"Six."

"Ah. I'm guessing Santraginians have a slightly different life cycle than humans."

"Yeah, we age a lot faster than Earth folks, by Earth standards- well, by any standards really," Bookwang made for the kitchen with an armful of pyramid fruits, Otto followed him. "Santraginian kids live at home until they reach maturity, which takes about four and half Earth years I think. Then they go to school for around ten years and then usually they leave the planet. You'll hardly ever see any real Santraginians in the resort cities, just the folks who sell all that touristy crap to the visitors. Real Santraginians like variety, we get bored with sun and sand day in and day out. Probably has to do with the lifespan, we want to fit as much as we can into the time we have, not waste it staying in one place." Bookwang set about cutting the fruits into pieces with his hands while his upper tentacles got out two plates and glasses and his lower tentacles opened a large freezer drawer and retrieved a pitcher of water.

Otto tried a slice of the pyramid fruit from his seat at the kitchen counter and found it pleasantly tart. Following Bookwang's example, he spit the small seeds inside the fruit's meat onto the plate. They were, of course, tiny pyramids. "Do you get a lot of your food from the garden?"

"Mm hm, my brother Miret set the whole thing up before he left for school. He's the smartest of all of us, you know. He's working on parallel universe navigation or something right now over on Vespa 4."

"How many siblings do you have?"

"Thirteen." This time Bookwang picked up on Otto's surprise, "Uh oh, here we go again. Boy, you're lucky I like to talk. Santraginian families usually have up to sixteen kids."

"Don't you worry about overpopulation?"

"Not really. I mean, not only are we not around long enough to do too much serious damage, but we're spread out all over the galaxy and we don't mate nearly as much as humans do. Zarquon, we're monks compared to you bunny rabbits. Usually it's just the oldest child who bothers to get a mate and have children. I think it's because they're the ones who see their mother and father together, so like the idea of being with another person that way is imprinted on their minds."

"You don't see your parents?"

"Well, I've met them; they helped me pack for school. Last I heard they were going to check out the last message God sent his creation, or maybe that was last year, they've been so active in their old age.(1) I forgot to say earlier that Santraginian couples have up to sixteen children within a three year period. After three years, the first child is old enough to look after the rest, so the parents usually split. Like I said, Santraginians don't like to stay in one place too long."

"So you were raised by your oldest sibling."

"Yeah, my sister Bellebox. She and her husband Mik have a hotel a few thousand miles from here, can you believe it?" Bookwang chuckled a little.

Otto assumed the alien found his sister's decision to tie herself so firmly to Santraginus V amusing, but he found he couldn't muster a polite chortle. All Bookwang's talk of family had brought unpleasant memories to Otto's mind, or perhaps memories so pleasant as to be made painful by his distance from their source. The day's activity caught up with him and he inquired as to where he could turn in for the night; as the pair had talked the sun had set, casting bands of pink onto the sapphire sky. Bookwang directed him to the nearest bedroom, saying as he closed the door on the scientist, "We'll start figuring out what to do tomorrow, Otto. Pajamas are in that first drawer there. Get some sleep, partner, you look like you kind of beat."

"Thank you, Bookwang," Otto said, lifting his tired eyes to meet his companion's, "For everything." The alien smiled, and the door shut quietly. Otto expected to toss and turn all night, but after valiantly holding in a groan of ecstasy upon sliding between the bed's cool soft sheets, he rolled over on his stomach and fell asleep.

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Around mid-morning the young alien girl's tentacles lifted her out of bed and placed her on her feet before the bathroom mirror, where she yawned. At that same time Otto settled into the same spot he'd occupied the evening before with another plate of fruit slices. Curiosity had driven him to pick a variety of fruits from the garden, so he found himself staring down at the riot of colors and shapes with a mix of caution and anticipation. Upstairs Hasta pulled on a shirt and pants, only to change into a sweater when she spotted the weather report on the screen near her bed. The sweater was almost eight months old and she'd nearly outgrown it, an inch of tentacle and arm poking out of the six sleeves. Otto's borrowed pajamas had no sleeves for the actuators, but the scientist still enjoyed the novelty of a piece of clothing designed to deal with his eight-limbed form. He would reflect later that it was also preferable that Hasta had come across him in the familiar Santraginus V pajamas instead of when he looked like he had stepped out of the poster on the wall of the L and L building. It would have been much more difficult for her to ignore him as she arranged her own breakfast that morning.

A multitude of things meandered through Otto's mind to break the ice, none coming even close to being vocalized. He focused on keeping the actuators from eyeballing Hasta with their eerie red lights. Otto had never been good with women, Rosie being the single miraculous exception, and neither had he been good with children. Girls falling neatly into both categories, he maintained his silence even when one of her upper tentacles touched his hand. "I wouldn't eat that," Hasta remarked, nodding to the slice of yellow fruit Otto had been about to eat. "Not many beings outside Santraginus V can digest it, and it's a pretty bad time for those who can't."

Otto dropped the fruit slice and wiped his hand on his pants for good measure. "Thank you."

"No problem." The girl hopped from her seat and disappeared through a doorway.

"Well, that went well," Otto said with a sigh. He finished his fruit, staying well away from the yellow slices, just as Bookwang walked in.

"Have you seen Hasta?" he asked as he buttoned his shirt.

"Yes, she just left. You might have told me some of the fruit from the garden is potentially poisonous."

Bookwang blinked, "Oh yeah. Sorry, man, you know when you live with something for most of your life you don't think it could be dangerous to other people." The alien walked over to an oval hole in the wall and stuck his face in it. On a small shelf beneath the hole a plate of _chul'lo_ pancakes materialized. Bookwang carried his plate over to take Hasta's place at the kitchen counter next to Otto.

"That's remarkable," the scientist said, still staring at the hole and shelf. Bookwang laughed.

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(1): I could tell you where to find God's last message to his creation, if only I had my copy of _So Long and Thanks for All the Fish_ with me.

A/N: Well, I hate to leave it here, but it's getting late and tomorrow I catch an early flight for Miami and I won't be back for the next week. Sorry for all the lame exposition on Santraginians, but we will be spending some time on the planet and I wanted folks to be informed. Next chapter: the Vogsphere.


	4. Planet of the Bureaucrats

A/N: So sorry for the long wait, guys. This September I moved into my dorm room at college. And then this October I poured Coke all over the keyboard of my laptop. After that I was just plain lazy for a while. Anyways, aren't you happy it's here now? Enjoy!

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It was nearly noon, and Bookwang and Otto were fighting. Bookwang was adamant that Otto go for his planetary citizenship wearing his trenchcoat, hat, and sunglasses. This was tripping Otto's now highly sensitive conscience. "You're implying that I attempt to pass myself off as that celebrity fellow, aren't you?" he accused, even over the actuators' evaluations of the idea's undeniable if unsavory merit.

Bookwang did some kind of whole-body shrug, which was impressive when his tentacles got involved, and returned to the large bag he was filling with food, small games, and some electronic items. "You know," he said, "if it gets you in and out of the Vogsphere any faster, you'll thank me for the idea. Trust me."

"What exactly is so bad about this place? You act as if we were talking about the seventh level of Hell here." Bookwang gave him a blank look. "A very bad place," Otto explained briefly.

"Well maybe I talk about it like it's a very bad place because it _is_ a very bad place."

Otto took a breath, "Very bad place or not, I won't go in there presenting myself as something I'm not. However, those clothes are the only ones I have, so I don't suppose I have a choice anyway." The scientist was starting to think the voice of his conscience was even worse than that of the actuators. At least they couldn't make him physically feel the strength of their collective will. The thought of using this unwitting actor's identity to further his own goals felt like chains on Otto's shoulders.

"I think you'll change your tune when we get there," was all Bookwang said, and handed Otto the filled to bursting bag.

Some time after Otto had gone to bed, Bookwang had sent a message to the flying saucer parked at the launch/land building to come home. When the pair left the house, it was sitting on the lawn in front of them. Bookwang opened the saucer's hood as he walked and the minute it had slid entirely into the craft something flew over Otto and Bookwang's heads and landed inside the saucer with a loud thump. Otto tensed, the actuators immediately arching up and scanning the surroundings. A heat scan of the saucer revealed a small Santraginian-shaped body crouched on the craft's floor. "I think your sister wants to come along," Otto remarked to Bookwang, who was still looking around the area in surprise.

"Hasta?" Bookwang inquired.

The girl's head popped up, "What?"

"What're you doing?"

"Coming along, like the man says," she tilted her head at Otto.

"Did you lock the front door?" Bookwang asked.

"Yeah."

Bookwang considered the situation, Otto waited for the brotherly burst of overprotection. "Okay," the young alien said, and climbed into the saucer.

"Thanks," Hasta replied and settled into the seat behind the pilot's chair. Otto shrugged and climbed in as well.

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Curiosity got the better of Otto's perennial fear of girls. "You know we're going to the Vogsphere, correct?" he asked Hasta.

"Mm hm," she affirmed.

"Then why do you want to come? Bookwang made it sound like quite an undesirable place for anyone, let alone a child."

The social temperature of the saucer dropped several degrees. Hasta leaned forward to speak to her brother, "What did you bring, Bookwang?" Otto got the sudden intense feeling that he was being let off the hook, for now.

"Check the bag underneath the console," he replied.

Hasta hooked a tentacle underneath the bag's strap and ferried it to her lap. She delved into its contents, making small sounds of approval as she took stock of the snacks and games Bookwang had brought. She paused in her explorations momentarily and pulled out a machine that looked like a laptop computer whose keyboard was cut in half and had all its buttons removed except six. Hasta put the machine aside and dug around in the bag until she came up with a smaller bag filled with thin rectangular brightly-colored boxes. She pulled one of the boxes out and Otto identified the bold primary colors of the infamous poster. "Did you mean to bring this?" she asked her brother.

Bookwang cast an eye back at her, taking in the chosen box and the machine, "Oh, um, no?"

Hasta gave him a look of dull annoyance, "Well I guess you could have chosen a worse time to spring it on him. Why not while we wait for his citizenship to come through?"

"What is it?" Otto asked.

Hasta handed him the box and Otto again found himself staring at his exact image done in bright primaries. He slid out what was inside the box; it appeared to be a plate of complex circuitry encased in clear plastic. "It's a recording of the movie you're- I mean Trego is in," Hasta said. Her eyes were darting from the box's image to Otto, obviously still not used to the uncanny resemblance.

"Trego, so that's his name. Hunh." Otto flipped over the case for the recording. He looked over at the laptop-like device, "I suppose you play these things on that."

Hasta picked up the machine, "Yeah. Do you wanna...?"

Otto thought about it for several moments. Bookwang half-turned in his chair to monitor the proceedings. "I think you should, Otto," he said, "Just so you know what all the fuss is about."

Otto nodded, "I agree. Hook it up, Hasta."

Hasta gave a small smile and tapped a section of the floor of the saucer with her foot. A pillar rose up from that section, stopping when it reached the height of Otto and Hasta's chairs. The Santraginian girl put the player on the top of the pillar, where it stuck as if magnetized. The screen lit up, suggesting Hasta insert the recording. She did so in a slot on the right side of the player. Then, she and Otto settled in to watch the movie.

Otto tried like hell to be objective about it. He noted the fine cinematography, the heartfelt acting, the engaging plot. He tried to banish all emotion while he watched the actor Trego build his robotic tentacles, struggling to deal with his underdeveloped hands. He tried not to imagine how the horde of women he had just barely evaded at the L and L building had felt while watching the movie. He tried not to feel the least bit vindicated at the heroics of Trego. He failed miserably. Really he had no chance; the resemblance was truly startling, even the actuators were having difficulty with what Otto was seeing.

**That is not how we were created, Father,** they remarked during the building process, as if the scientist had forgotten.

_That's correct. Don't worry about it._

**But these images do not match our memory banks.** Sometimes it was tricky for the actuators to distinguish what Otto was currently seeing from his memories.

_I said don't worry. Remind me to never go to the movies with you._

The actuators were silent for a blessed beat, Otto dared to dream he had quieted them. **How would you go to the movies without us, Father?**

Otto tried to tune out the actuators' voices for most of the recording.

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There is nothing attractive about the Vogsphere, except perhaps the jeweled crabs, which have been hunted to near extinction by the Vogons. The planet's thick dry atmosphere invaded the saucer's interior as soon as the dome receded, smelling of swamp gas and vast quantities of rotting paper. Bookwang landed the saucer in a city, for lack of a better word. Otto and the actuators' gaze roved around the space as the trio walked along the bare streets. They wandered more or less at random, Bookwang saying this was their best hope at finding the office for planetary citizenships. The actuators commented that the gargantuan slabs of brown gray rock that served as buildings would be extremely difficult to climb. Otto dearly hoped the circumstances that would requite such extreme measures wouldn't arise.

Hasta had switched from walking to allowing her tentacles to ferry her over the ground. Otto watched her out of the corner of his eye, debating whether he should do the same. However accustomed to the actuators' weight he may have become, after the length of time they had been walking, they were starting to pull at his spine. But it had been such a long time since he'd used the actuators to carry himself- not since... The scientist dragged his thoughts off their dark path in favor of watching Hasta put her upper tentacles on the ground before her and idly turned a midair somersault.

"Now, I enjoy aimless wandering as much as the next person," the girl said as the trio turned yet another random corner, "But, should we actually find the planetary citizenships office and get Otto taken care of within any our lifetimes, how are we going to find the saucer again? I was just wondering."

"I've been keeping track of our progress, Hasta," Otto replied, for some reason feeling a little embarrassed. He continued, "But I think it couldn't hurt too badly to get some directions."

"All right," Bookwang conceded, "But let me do the talking." Hasta rolled her eyes and her brother commenced searching the surrounding area for another living soul. There had been eerily few so far, while Otto had been continually telling himself he hadn't heard faint moans of anguish in the distance. More than once the phrase "ghost town" had drifted across his mind.

Several minutes passed before Bookwang finally spotted a Vogon waddling down the street. "Hello?" he hailed the blobby creature.

The Vogon spun around, "Resistance is use-"

"Yeah, so I've heard," Bookwang swiftly interrupted, "Look, do you have any clue where we might be able to get my friend here a planetary citizenship for Santraginus V?"

The Vogon blinked, and seemed to have frozen up.

Bookwang tried again, "Planetary citizenship. Santraginus V. Damn, all the important words are polysyllabic. Let's see- immigration? No. Papers? No, too vague. Umm..."

While Bookwang attempted to translate his request, Otto watched the Vogon meander away and into the center of the intersection of four nameless streets. The Vogon lifted a skinny arm and pointed down one. Otto walked down the road, guiding the struggling Bookwang with a hand on his back. "Wait," the young alien shouted as the Vogon lumbered away, "I got it! I got it! Home! How does he get home! Wait, that doesn't work."

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"This must be it."

"How do you know?"

"This is the only door on this street."

"Yes, the street the Vogon pointed us down. Who knows if he even knew what we were talking about?" Bookwang was still upset about what he considered his failure to communicate with their departed guide. "And besides, where's the sign? This could be anything really."

"Well, let's stand here and speculate some more, maybe we'll find out," Hasta's voice rang with sarcasm as she pushed past Otto and her brother.

The door slid into the wall as she entered a corridor just as blank as the street. It was well lit, in a florescent, soul-sucking kind of way, and clean as a morgue. Otto felt he should be expecting armed robots to zoom down the corridor and capture them all at any moment, and so kept the actuators tense and ready. The trio turned a corner into a dead end. No other doors, nothing but a high wall with something written far up on it.

Bookwang, on his lower tentacles, stretched up to read the writing. "Oh that's rich," he growled.

"What's it say?" Otto asked.

Bookwang looked down at his companions, "Planetary citizenship offices are the next street over."

Otto's mind boggled, "But then why did-? Why would that Vogon-? Why the corridor-? Why the sign up there-?"

Hasta patted the scientist's shoulder, "Better get used to it, Otto. It's gonna be a long day."

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They finally found a sign reading "Planetary Citizenship Offices" inside a crack in the wall a block away from the actual door to the waiting area. An actuator leaned the tarnished, nearly unreadable sign against the wall as Otto followed Bookwang and Hasta. Inside, the scientist tried not to be surprised upon seeing the longest line of people he'd ever seen before. People of all shapes and sizes stared at their feet, or what passed for feet, in that zombie-like trance seen across the galaxy wherever lines may form. Someone stepped in front of the Santraginian siblings and Otto just before they got to the end of the line, taking up the last space inside the designated line and forcing the trio to stand in that vague place outside the actual line where you get asked constantly if you are in line no matter how obvious you make the honest fact that you are in the line.

"Bookwang, pass the flave-o-fives," Hasta said grimly. (1)

"Not yet, we have to make this stuff last."

"I wish I brought a book," Otto remarked. He thought for a moment, "I wish I _had_ a book."

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(1): Flave-o-fives- popular snack food item consumed in the perfectly dreadful made-for-TV movie, _Overdrawn at the Memory Bank,_ starring Raul Julia and Wanda Cannon and duly roasted on _Mystery Science Theater 3000_.

A/N: Will the gang get through the Vogons' dastardly line of doom? Will Otto have to pose as a celebrity to get his planetary citizenship? Will Hasta ever get her flave-o-fives? Find out next chapter!

Also, if anyone has any ideas about what the name of the infamous movie should be, please don't hesitate to share. I can only hold out for so long before somebody asks what it's called.


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